


the lessons you have taught

by amjnyard



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Development, Character Study, GOT Secret Santa, Gen, Sansa Stark is Queen in the North, all i have is love for sansa stark and hate for petyr baelish, i really hate this sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 03:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17236622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amjnyard/pseuds/amjnyard
Summary: a study of sansa stark, girl, prisoner, bride, lady in the north. for the lannisters and the south have taught her many lessons, and she knows two things. the north remembers and winter is coming.





	the lessons you have taught

**Author's Note:**

> written for the got secret santa on tumblr! rly hate it but this is a week late so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Sansa was just a girl when she first meets Joffrey. She liked to think she wasn’t, of course, she was a lady, nothing like her little kid sister Arya. Sansa didn’t play in the mud and Sansa didn’t want to learn archery and Sansa never snuck off to listen to gown up conversations. No, Sansa did what Septa Mordane told her, was a good little lady, worthy to be a King’s bride one day. She excelled at her sewing and mastered embroidery and dreamed of Joffrey, a golden prince from a golden land who would make her queen. Who would take her away from the cold of the North and show her the beauty of King’s Landing, at her side every step of the way. 

No, Sansa was just a girl when he and his whole family and house staff came trotting into Winterfell, like they owned the place. But her father had sworn fealty to King Robert long ago, so their land was a part of the Seven Kingdoms. Sansa delighted at Queen Cersei’s approval, blushed when Arya embarrassed them, couldn’t keep her eyes away from Jaime Lannister, golden lion preening on his chest plate. 

Sansa loved the Lannisters. They were golden and bright and full of life and power, filling Winterfell’s halls with light and laughter and parties. She resented her family, her father for his cold, traditional ways. Father had never renounced the old gods, still went to the godswood to pray, even though their mother had brought the Seven with her when she came to Winterfell. She fingered her hair with envy, eyes drinking in the Queen’s elaborate hairstyle and gilded dresses, and she tugged at her own cloth dress, a far cry from the South’s luxury. 

Sansa watched Joffrey, compared him to her brother Robb, and finds nothing but superiority. She said nothing to Robb, too scared of what his reaction might be, but she appreciated Joffrey’s fine weapon hanging at his hip and the way his hair shone like spun gold, even in the weak sun of the North. 

Sansa squealed with joy when her father told her she would head South with him, even though part of her crumbles at the thought of going with Arya. Arya who ruins everything, who doesn’t take their position seriously. Sansa knew if Arya settled down, she would find a lord of her own someday. Not higher than Sansa’s own betrothed, she knew this with a vicious glee, but someone who would bring honor to House Stark. Someone respectable. 

But Sansa was just a girl then. She treasured her future and herself above family. She couldn’t bring herself to tell the truth when confronted with the Lannisters. Strong and beautiful, Sansa thought. She had been so horrified at the river, so powerless. Arya had power, she thought sullenly. Arya could make things happen, even if they were horrible and awful and embarrassing. At least she didn’t stand by the sidelines, screaming like a baby. 

Things had been going so well with Joffrey and Arya had ruined them. Under the gaze of the Queen and her father and the King and Joffrey and all their men, Sansa can’t stutter out the truth or a lie. She couldn’t bear the disappointment of her father but she can’t stop thinking of the way the Queen would be so disappointed in her for blaming her betrothed, Joffrey. What if she decided another girl would be better? One who wouldn’t betray her future King and future husband. 

So Sansa said nothing, stood with her head bowed, sided with the Lannisters over her family, over her blood. Sansa might have had wolf’s blood running through her veins, but she craved the warmth of the sun. She wanted out from her heavy furs, from the snows of the North and into the blaze of the South. Liar Arya hollered at her, thrashing in their father’s arms. Arya, dirty and dress covered in thorns, unafraid to the last. 

Sansa hated her. 

Hated her even more when Lady was the one sentenced for Arya’s crime. Sansa begged and pleaded and cried but the Queen was not swayed and Sansa learned her first lesson from the Lannisters. 

Someone would always pay the price, even the innocent. Sansa would not realize, not for a long time, the price she would pay the Lannisters. She was too caught up in her dreams of becoming Queen, of wearing her hair braided in the style of the South, of finally being able to banish her sister far away. Sansa didn’t want to think about the cruelty festering in Joffrey or the disregard the Queen held for her. 

Sansa was just a girl. 

 

Her second lesson with the Lannisters would not be as trifling as the head of a wolf. 

Oh, Sansa loved King’s Landing. She loved the heat of the sun against her skin, the luxuriousness of society. She reveled in the tournaments and in the food and in the other girls’ company. Sansa couldn’t wait to become Queen, to marry Joffrey and carry his children, to follow in the footsteps of Queen Cersei. 

She watched as her father became more haggard with the responsibility of being the Hand of the King. She watched as he started to wither under the pressure. Father was never made for the South, Sansa thought one day, watching the way he was constantly pushing his hair back from his forehead, the heat too much to bear. She thought, when she was Queen, she would send her father back North. Where he belonged. Sansa hated Winterfell, resented it for making her seem so unrefined, but she knew that Winterfell was home to the Starks. She knew her father would love her for her actions. 

But then the King dies and Sansa sobbed when she heard her father had committed treason against Joffrey. She couldn’t believe it. That he would ever intentionally betray the King of the Seven Kingdoms. She didn’t understand what happened, not until too late. 

Sansa did everything they asked of her. She wrote home to Robb, pleaded for him to swear fealty to Joffrey. Her hand shook as she wrote and Sansa questions for the first time whose side she’s actually on. Her father was rotting away in a dungeon cell, deep under the Red Keep and Arya had disappeared and here Sansa was, writing a letter to her brother begging him to submit to the very people responsible. 

Sansa was starting to wear at the edges. She didn’t feel like a girl anymore, but she wrote to her brother, praying it would keep her father alive. 

Sansa was a fool when she learned her second lesson from the Lannisters. 

She was forced to watch her father meet his end, standing there smiling and nodding like everything was going to be okay, like her father was going to live and journey back to the North to be with her mother once more. Sansa was a fool. Her betrothed calls for her father’s head and Sansa heard herself scream, felt herself fall to the ground, her entire world coming apart at the seams. She was a fool. 

Sansa’s second lesson from the Lannisters was to guard her heart, to take nothing for granted. Sansa lost Lady to her pride and she lost her father to her naivety. She swore to herself she would never forget. She would make them all pay, if it was the last thing she did. 

 

Sansa heard what they whispered about her brother in the streets. The Young Wolf they whisper when they think no one can hear. Joffrey has her father’s head on a spike, and he forced Sansa to her knees, forced her to relive the worst moment of her life. Maybe he’ll bring me yours she spits, a fire more consuming than anything she’s ever felt filling her veins. It’s worth it, she thinks, to see the look on Joffrey’s face. 

She thinks she’s learning to play this game, a game where every smile is a calculated step and every bow of her head and every concession to the Lannisters is another day lived. She is living day by day, living on the scraps of gossip she hears murmured about Robb, tearing his way south. 

She doesn’t sleep anymore, just thinks about her brother, how he is coming to free her from this hell the Lannisters seem to have crafted just for her. Robb, Robb, Robb, she thinks, in tune with the pounding of her blood and the beat of her heart. Sometimes Sansa thinks of Arya too, a strange longing in her chest to be wherever her sister is. 

She envies Arya, for the first time in her life. Wishes she could have escaped Kings Landing too, instead of standing witness to the murder of her father. 

 

Sansa screams silently into her pillow when she learns of her brother’s massacre. Her mother, gone as well. She knows they watch her, knows they are tracking her movements waiting for any sign of disloyalty. 

She wears her smile like armor, carries her head high. She will make her mother proud. 

 

Sansa’s third lesson comes from Petyr Baelish. 

She thinks she may have trusted Petyr, once upon a time, like her father before her. After all, he loved her mother and Sansa is nothing but an image of Catelyn, now long gone. So she follows him out of King’s Landing to the Eyrie and back to Winterfell. 

In fact, Sansa thinks, Petyr Baelish taught her the most valuable lesson yet. Sure, he may have sold her to the Boltons, delivered her wrapped like a gift for Ramsay to break each passing day. What they don’t know is Sansa is already broken. Broken from years of abuse at the hands of the Lannisters. Broken from seeing her father murdered in front of her. Broken from the death of her brother and mother, killed in cold blood under the banner of peace. 

She’s learned to guard her heart, learned to recognize the consequences. She’s hard as steel and even as Ramsay further breaks her apart, Sansa glues the pieces of her heart back together. She plots revenge, dreams of the day she’ll make Ramsay suffer the way she has suffered. She already does the same with Cersei, dreams of watching her choke on her own blood, the way her mother did at Roose Bolton’s hands. 

But she learns something from Littlefinger’s betrayal. She learns no one will look after her out of the good of their own hearts. She trusted Petyr Baelish to keep her safe, to help her, and he used her in order to secure his own position in King’s Landing and at the Vale. Now Sansa knows if she ever wants to be safe, she’ll have to look out for herself. 

 

Ramsay’s death is sweet and Sansa thinks the sounds of his screaming are some of the sweetest she’s experienced in a long while. 

We know no king but the king in the North whose name is Stark the Northern lords rally around Jon and Sansa waits to the side, biding her time. She will support Jon, for now, although he is no Stark and does not carry their family name. She knows the North must be a united front and has no desire to cause conflict after their recent victory. 

So she sits by, lets Jon Snow be named King in the North, like their brother before him, and thinks about what she is to do with Petyr Baelish, always watching from the shadows. He’s a constant presence in her ear, murmuring all sort of manipulations in her ear. 

Sansa knows he wants her to seize power from Jon, declare herself Queen in the North. Sansa would be lying if she said the idea didn’t intrigue her. But Jon leaves to meet with Daenerys Targaryen, a move Sansa warns him against. She is left behind with the North, left to prepare Winterfell for the winter that is coming. 

Littlefinger still murmurs in her ear, still tries to manipulate her to his whims. Arya returns and his whispers only increase. But Sansa still remembers the lesson he taught her, about looking out for herself first and foremost. She and Arya are not so different, now. 

Sansa thinks the look on his face as he chokes on his own blood might be worth the pain he caused her and her family over the years. 

As she looks forward, south, towards Cersei, Sansa watches the list of people who have wronged her family grow shorter. 

She thinks she rather enjoys the sound of Queen in the North. Maybe that will be her next goal.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @zoyalinas for more garbage!


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